Course Description
The peopling of America fifteen thousand years ago transformed our world and continues to shape our lives today. This course introduces students to the major themes in Indigenous North American history from the first migration to the New World up to the present day.
Athena Title
Native American History
Pre or Corequisite
One course in HIST or NAMS or POLS or CMLT or SOCI or ECOL or EHSC or HPAM or third- or fourth-year student standing
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Student learning Outcomes
- Students will understand how to read and handle sources that are inherently one-sided and biased.
- Students will learn how disease, warfare, dispossession, and ecological degradation changed the demography of the content.
- Students will learn how Native peoples survived, despite the colonial onslaught.
- Students will learn how U.S. Indian policy developed and evolved and how it continues to shape the lives of Native peoples.
Topical Outline
- Peopling of America
- Precontact North America
- Contact and Disease
- Trade and Missionization
- The Environment Transformed
- The Environment Transformed
- Deportation
- The Plains Wars
- The Vanishing American and Ishi
- The Vanishing American and Ishi
- Friends of the Indian and Assimilation
- The Courts and Plenary Power
- The Indian Reorganization Act and Postwar America
- Hollywood and the Indian
- Red Power
- Self-determination and gaming
